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A Chariot Sherd from Mycenae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Joost Crouwel
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Extract

The potsherd that is published here (Fig. 1 and Plate 30a) comes from Lord William Taylour's excavations in the ‘House with the Idols’ (‘Citadel House’) at Mycenae. It was found on 14 August 1968 in area 2, trench A, level 3. The find-context (given at the time of excavation but not subsequently studied) suggests a terminus ante quem of L.H. IIIC.

The piece (Mycenae Excavations no. 59–224) which is at present in the Archaeological Museum, Nauplia (inv. no. 14685), may be described as follows:

Sherd from body with start of neck of a large, closed vessel. Ridge on outside, at joint of body and neck. H.0·053 m. W.0·082 m. Th. (at lower edge) 0·007 m. Well levigated pinkish-buff clay, polished buff outside. Paint shaded brown, now rather badly worn off. Surface chipped in places.

Solid paint on outside of neck, including ridge at bottom. Below, part of a pictorial composition which consisted of a chariot, to left. All that remains of it are the driver's upper body and head and his hands holding two sets of reins. The driver's garment is drawn in outline and spotted. His neck and head are depicted carefully, also in outline; the top of the head was covered by paint-work subsequently applied to the neck of the vase. The hair is curled at the back and follows the outline of the ear. The eye is marked as a reserved, roughly almond-shaped area which, originally, probably contained a dot for the pupil; it fills the whole facial area between the forehead and hair.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 67 , November 1972 , pp. 99 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1972

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References

Acknowledgements. I am most grateful to Lord William Taylour for permission to study the sherd and publish it; to Mrs. E. French for information on its find-context and for supplying a photograph and profile drawing; to Miss A. Tamvaki for information; to Mr. D. E. L. Haynes and the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to use the hitherto unpublished photograph at Plate 30b; and to Mr. G. Strietman for re-drawing Fig. I after my and Mrs. French's originals.

Abbreviation additional to those in standard use:

MP = A. Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery (1941).

1 Brief outlines of the excavations in BSA lxiv (1969) 259 f.Google Scholar; AJA lxxv (1971) 266 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 Cf. MP 9 f., 430 ff.; Catling, H. W.–Millett, A., BSA lx (1965) 212 ffGoogle Scholar. (with bibliography). Forthcoming studies cited infra n. 11.

3 Cf. MP 237 ff. with fig. 25 (Motif 1) for L.H. IIIA and later heads.

4 Cf. Biran, A., IEJ xx (1970) 92 ffGoogle Scholar. with fig. 1 and pl. 25C (Tel Dan); Sieveking, J.–Hackl, R., Die königliche Vasensammlung zu München i (1912) 6Google Scholar no. 47 with fig. 7 (Rhodes); BMC C 338, 341, 358 (here plate 30b) (Cyprus).

5 BMC C 358 (personal examination, January 1967).

6 For overpainting see also, among others, Sjöqvist, E., Problems of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age (1940)Google Scholar fig. 19 (Cyprus) and the vase from Tel Dan cited supra n. 4.

7 Cf. Weinberg, S. S., Hesperia xviii (1949) 156 fGoogle Scholar. with pls. 23–4 (Corinth); Cl. Schaeffer, F. A., Ugaritica ii (1949)Google Scholar fig. 94, below (Ugarit); supra n. 4 and n. 6 (Tel Dan); BMC C 338, 343, 347, 359, 361, and Karageorghis, V.'s, BCH xciii (1969) 168 ffGoogle Scholar. with figs. 6–g (Cyprus).

8 Cf. MP fig. 25 (Motive 1) for drivers.

9 Cf. supra n. 4 (Rhodes) and n. 7 (Ugarit); Sjöqvist, supra n. 6, fig. 19 no. 163, CVA Great Britain 1, IICb, pl. 7. 4, and CVA Cyprus 1, pl. 7 A 1645 (all Cyprus).

10 Cf., among others, Catling, AJA lxxii (1968) 41 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Unfortunately Karageorghis, V.'s comprehensive dissertation ‘The Mycenaean Vases of the Pictorial Style’ (1957)Google Scholar was never published. However we may now look forward to a joint study by him and Mrs. E. Vermeule of this subject. Of great importance will also be the publication of material from Berbati (by Prof. Å. Åkerström) and Tiryns (by E. Slenczka).

12 Cf. supra n. 7 (Corinth); Åkerström, , Arkeologiska forskningar och fynd (1952) 35Google Scholar with fig. 5, and idem, Atti e memorie del Io Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia i (1968) 48 ff. with pl. 2, 2–3 (Berbati); FLMV 46, no. 97 with pl. xv (Nauplia); Taylour, Lord William, BSA 1 (1955) 226Google Scholar, no. 36 and BSA xlviii (1953)Google Scholar pl. 1, b (Mycenae).

13 Cf. Åkerström, supra n. 12, for Berbati.

14 Cf. Catling-Millett, supra n. 2.

15 This view is shared, among others, by Catling-Millett, supra n. 2, Åkerström, supra n. 12 (Atti e memorie…); Benson, J. L., AJA lxxi (1967) 316CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deshayes, J., Argos. Les Fouilles de la Deiras (1966) 164 ff.Google Scholar; Dikaios, P., Enkomi Excavations 1948–1958 i (1969) 249 ff.Google Scholar, See also Catling, , Cypriote Bronzework in the Mycenaean World (1964) 40 ff.Google Scholar, and idem, CAH 2 ch. XXIIb (1966) 56 f.

16 Karageorghis has so far maintained production in Cyprus, cf., for instance, Nouveaux documents pour l'étude du Bronze récent à Chypre (1965) 201 ff.Google Scholar; Cyprus (English ed., 1969) 61 and 138 f., and BCH xciii (1969) 172Google Scholar.